Crisis? What crisis? Myth and reality in the debate on a ageing Australia

The Commonwealth Government’s Intergenerational Report 2002_03claims that Australia’s ageing population poses a serious challenge for responsible fiscal policy in the longer term, a claim repeated in subsequent official pronouncements. We reject this claim, pointing to its rhetorical nature and to the lack of systematic sensitivity analysis of many of the critical variables. We conclude that the ageing ‘crisis’ is largely mythical